I got a few fun Christmas presents that were art related. I got a set of Tropical Gelatos from Faber Castell. These are similar to oil pastels, but water-soluble, which means you can spread them with water. They are creamy and have vivid colors. I have a bunch of these in different shades.

I have some of the Gelli printing plates at school and I wanted to have a small one to use in my art journal. I got the 3"x5" Gel Printing Plate, which is great for doing small prints.

Lynda Barry has some really interesting books with writing and drawing exercises, comics and collage. I gifted this book to my sister-in-law and also received it off of my Amazon wishlist! Here are some peeks inside the book Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor.

Happy New Year! I didn't get a chance to make as much art as I wanted, but here is a mosaic of most of the artwork I made this year. Thanks for reading my blog and following along with my adventures. Here's to a great 2015!

Since I have some new followers I thought I would share some old artwork from several years ago. I remember when Daria was first born. I did not have much time to make art. As she got a bit older and was able to play on her own for a little bit at a time, I was able to steal some moments to do some quick art. I loved when she got even older and was able to paint and draw and glue things next to me. When Desmond gets a little older, I am looking forward to being able to do some art with him. He's at that "everything goes in the mouth" stage now and he gets in to EVERYTHING. He is able to pull himself up to standing now and as he moves around the room he manages to find everything that is not a toy to put in his mouth.

Since I don't have anything new to show you, here are some artworks from the archives that I thought were interesting enough to revisit. These are all from 2011.

With this one, I was experimenting with masking from contact paper and watercolor paints.

A mixed media collage in progress... I didn't like how the final version turned out, but I liked this in progress photo.

Just a hodge podge of art journal pages.
Not a lot to say...
I played with some papers.
Scribbled some marks.
Laid down a lot of paint.

This next one was made from a hot glue stencil on a Gelli plate.
Then I added watercolor paint on top and line work with white pen.

It reminds me of an island.
Or a map.

I donated a piece of art to the Artists Give Back online auction. You can bid on my artwork starting at $15. The artwork in the auction is this one:

The auction starts on December 8 and ends December 12. There's a lot of awesome artwork already donated. Check it out!

"Imagine Rites of Passage that end in pledges to educate African girls
and empower them, rather than cutting them. Artists around the world
have donated work AND shipping to raise awareness about Female Genital
Mutilation (FGM) and the importance of creating Alternative Rites of
Passage (ARP) for girls and to highlight the dangers girls face as a
result of FGM."

I managed to spend a bit of time this past weekend working in my art journal. The first page was started with a watercolor background and then I tried to use up lots of scraps that were in my scrapbooking stash. I really like this ink doodle with organic shapes. Do you ever do that? Limit yourself to just using the scraps you have in a pile. See what happens when you try to just use up what you already have without cutting in to new pieces of paper.

This was a sketch I had started based off of a photograph I found online. I was using this as a demonstration for teaching the grid method with one of my 5th/6th grade classes. The girl already had some interesting decorations in her hair, so I decided to add some collage elements.

I used that Molotow masking fluid pen for the white parts of this image. I did several layers of watercolor doodling and then used Sharpies and glued a few other collage elements on top. I cut out two of the images from this previous page to include on this picture.

Gah! I'm in such a creative rut. I rarely have time to make my own art and when I do I feel like I don't know where to start so I just do something else. Anyone else feel that way?

I discovered the Molotow Masking Fluid Pen after reading about it on iHanna's blog. I couldn't find it in too many American stores, but I did find it at Art Primo online. This pen works just like regular masking fluid, but it comes out from a pen so it's much easier to control.

First, I drew the word "Imagine" using the masking fluid pen. The fluid comes out blue, as you can see in the next picture. After I drew my words, I used watercolor paint to doodle on top of the letters and around them.

Here's the final picture! I can't wait to use the Molotow masking fluid pen more!

Aren't the colors of the fall leaves breathtaking? I scanned some of
the leaves that I found on the trees here in Wisconsin. Feel free to
print these out, color designs on them with permanent or paint markers,
make a collage or just draw from the pictures. They would also look
good on a bulletin board.

1. I had the opportunity to talk to one of my favorite artists ON THE PHONE. William Wegman, who is known for dressing his dogs in costumes and photographing them, was so gracious to talk to me on the phone for an interview. I posted it on my other blog, Art is Basic. Hop over there to listen to the recording!!

School started this week! Wow, what an adjustment going back. My feet and back are aching! I've had to get both kids ready for daycare in the morning, since my husband is on the morning shift for a few weeks, so I've been having to wake up so early! I've spent so much time on my art classroom this summer. We had an addition built to our school and they built ANOTHER ART ROOM! So exciting! I have the old room, but now I do not have to share a room anymore, so we have so much MORE SPACE to spread out into. I thought I would show you some of the fun parts of my room. If you want to see more pictures in my classroom, you can visit my art teaching blog Art is Basic.